Cal Poly's Center for Sustainability is hosting compost training this week with a variety of presentations and opportunities for hands-on experience in composting, including an exercise on compost pile management.
This week is all about composting at Cal Poly Center for Sustainability. The Center is hosting compost training until Friday this week, put on by the Maine Compost School and funded by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The training includes presentations from experts, lab exercises and hands-on experience related to various aspects of composting.
Center for Sustainability Director Hunter Francis said the training is a good networking opportunity and brings exposure to Cal Poly’s work in compost.
“The goal here is to provide professional development in composting, which is a little bit harder to find because not a lot of people on the West Coast are doing that,” Francis said. “So we saw that as like a niche for us.”
Cal Poly’s compost unit is the largest university compost facility in California, Francis said. There isn’t a lot of compost training on the West Coast and Cal Poly has a “great demonstration model,” he said, and so the idea came up at the Center to offer training in California.
Francis said the instructional technician who manages the compost unit went to the Maine Compost School for training six years ago and came back very enthusiastic about it. After that, the technician proposed the Center get funding to bring the training here.
That funding was provided by a grant from the USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program in September 2011. Francis said the money funded not only this week’s training, but also provided seed money for the Center’s new Cal Poly Compost Project which focuses on compost education and research.
The Maine Compost School began in 1997 to help people improve their composting practices, director Mark King said. The school has graduated students from 42 countries all over the world. Cal Poly is only the third university the Maine Compost School has visited to put on this training, and according to King it’s been “a great experience thus far.”
King said the Maine Compost School would return to Cal Poly in the future, and he wants the university to continue the compost education. The Maine Compost School doesn’t consider schools that offers compost training to be their competition, but an opportunity for the Maine Compost School to get the word out, King said.
“If there are 10 or 12 more schools across the country, we increase the odds,” King said. “We’re in it for the education.”
According to Francis, continuing this compost training in the future is the goal; Francis said “it’s looking doable” to make it happen and that there would be enough interest. He said he wants it to be a collaborative effort with other state agencies and nonprofits.
This week’s training covers a range of topics including types of composting equipment, composting methods and troubleshooting compost piles. Presentations include hands-on exercises at the Cal Poly Farm Shop and the compost unit. The training also included a field trip yesterday, where participants visited several companies with a composting aspect.
The training is similar to what the Compost School does in Maine and the three presenters from the school are “doing the bulk of the teaching,” Francis said. He also said the Maine Compost School wanted the Center to supplement some of the talks and exercises to tailor the training to California, so the training has some guest speakers and Cal Poly presenters.
Most of the registered participants are professionals outside of Cal Poly, Francis said, but there is “a good cross-section” of Cal Poly faculty and staff from a variety of departments involved in both the presentations and as participants.
There are 26 enrolled participants, which include Cal Poly faculty and staff and students who are just visiting, Francis said. There’s an open invitation for anyone at Cal Poly interested in becoming part of the Cal Poly Compost Project, Francis said.
One enthusiastic participant in the training is Gisele Schoniger, a Cal Poly alumnus who now works at Kellogg Garden Products, a composting company, as an organic gardening educator.
It’s not just about attending the training for Schoniger — she said it’s a “professional development agenda” for her. Being around this audience brings up “great questions” and challenges.
“(It’s) just being around like-minded people that are all facing similar but different challenges, actually doing the hands-on, seeing the piles, seeing how to troubleshoot — and just being reconnected back to the energy of Cal Poly,” Schoniger said. “It’s a great energy.”
One guest presenter was Matthew Cotton of Integrated Waste Management Consulting in Nevada City, Calif., and a board member of the U.S. Composting Council. Cotton gave a presentation Tuesday about composting regulations.
Cotton said he jumped at the chance to take part in the training, and he would love to be a part of any future training the university offers. According to Cotton, it’s “really great” that Cal Poly is taking a leadership position and providing composting instruction.
“The world-class research professors you have here and the practical compost site and the intersection of those two things … it’s a great resource for industry to have,” Cotton said. “Because composting’s really important … we need more compost.”
People seem happy with the training so far, Francis said — he’s already gotten positive feedback. He said he’s looking forward to a talk on Friday about the soil foodweb. The presenter is bringing videos so the audience can see “all the different critters” in the soil.
“That’s going to kind of be like the ‘Star Wars’ portion,” Francis said. “That’ll be interesting.”
